Hillary Clinton Condemns Wikileaks; Embarrassing Breach Of Trust

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Clinton: "Leaks Tear At The Fabric Of Government"


U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton condemned on Monday the leak of more than 250,000 classified State Department documents, saying the U.S. was taking aggressive steps to hold responsible those who "stole" the information.

In her first public comments since the weekend release of the classified State Department cables, Clinton said online whistleblower Wikileaks acted illegally in posting the material. She said the Obama administration was "aggressively pursuing" those responsible for the leak.

Clinton's comments come as the Obama administration moved into damage control mode, trying to contain fallout from unflattering assessments of world leaders and revelations about backstage U.S. diplomacy.

She said the document leaks "tear at the fabric" of responsible government and that the U.S. "deeply regrets" the disclosures. While maintaining that the leaks erode trust between nations, Clinton also said she was "confident" that U.S. partnerships would withstand the challenges posed by the latest revelations.

The publication of the secret cables on Sunday amplified widespread global alarm about Iran's nuclear ambitions and unveiled occasional U.S. pressure tactics aimed at hot spots in Afghanistan, Pakistan and North Korea. The leaks also disclosed bluntly candid impressions from both diplomats and other world leaders about America's allies and foes .

According to the vast cache of diplomatic cables, Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah has repeatedly urged the United States to attack Iran's nuclear program and China directed cyber attacks on the United States.

Bristling over the unauthorized release, President Barack Obama on Monday ordered a government-wide review of how agencies safeguard sensitive information.

The Office of Management and Budget told agencies to establish security assessment teams to ensure that employees do not have broader access to classified information than what is needed to do their jobs.

'Cut off the head of the snake'

Among the revelations in Britain's Guardian newspaper — which received an advance look at the documents along with the New York Times, France's Le Monde, Germany's Der Spiegel and Spain's El Pais — Saudi King Abdullah is reported to have "frequently exhorted the U.S. to attack Iran to put an end to its nuclear weapons program."

"Cut off the head of the snake," the Saudi ambassador to Washington, Adel al-Jubeir, quotes the king as saying during a meeting with U.S. Gen. David Petraeus in April 2008.

The cables unearthed new revelations about long-simmering nuclear trouble spots, detailing U.S., Israeli and Arab world fears of Iran's growing nuclear program, American concerns about Pakistan's atomic arsenal and U.S. discussions about a united Korean peninsula as a long-term solution to North Korean aggression.

Iran's president said Monday that the leaked memos recounting Arab calls for the U.S. to launch a strike on Iran's nuclear facilities were intended to stir "mischief."

"We don't give any value to these documents," Ahmadinejad told a news conference. "It's without legal value. Iran and regional states are friends. Such acts of mischief have no impact on relations between nations."

Ahmadinejad alleged the leaks were an "organized" effort by the U.S. to stir trouble between Iran and Arab neighbors.

The Guardian said officials in Jordan and Bahrain have also openly called for Iran's nuclear program to be stopped by any means and that leaders of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Egypt referred to Iran "as 'evil,' an 'existential threat' and a power that 'is going to take us to war.'"

Those documents may prove the trickiest because even though the concerns of the Gulf Arab states are known, their leaders rarely offer such stark appraisals in public.

Disclosures about U.S.-led diplomatic efforts to curb Iran's nuclear program are a surprise public relations windfall for Israel, a former Israeli national security adviser said on Monday.

The secret cables showed Israel trying to prod a sometimes skeptical Washington into tougher action — such as sanctions, subversion, and even a military strike by 2011 — against Tehran.

"If there is something on the Iranian issue that, in my opinion, happens to help Israel, it is that these leaks show that Arab countries like Saudi Arabia are far more interested in Iran than they are in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, for example," Giora Eiland, a retired Israeli general who served as national security adviser to former prime ministers Ariel Sharon and Ehud Olmert, told Israel Radio.

None of the disclosures appeared particularly explosive, but their publication could become problems for the officials concerned and for any secret initiatives they had preferred to keep quiet. The massive release of material intended for diplomatic eyes only is sure to ruffle feathers in foreign capitals, a certainty that already prompted U.S. diplomats to scramble in recent days to shore up relations with key allies in advance of the leaks.

At Clinton's first stop in Astana, Kazakhstan, she will be attending a summit of officials from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, a diplomatic grouping that includes many officials from countries cited in the leaked cables.

White House playing defense

The White House immediately condemned the release of the WikiLeaks documents, saying "such disclosures put at risk our diplomats, intelligence professionals and people around the world who come to the United States for assistance in promoting democracy and open government."

Rep. Peter Hoekstra of Michigan, the senior Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, called the release very damaging.

"The catastrophic issue here is just a breakdown in trust," he said Monday, adding that many other countries — allies and foes alike — are likely to ask, " 'Can the United States be trusted? Can the United States keep a secret?' "

U.S. officials may also have to mend fences after revelations that they gathered personal information on other diplomats. The leaks cited American memos encouraging U.S. diplomats at the United Nations to collect detailed data about the U.N. secretary-general, his team and foreign diplomats — going beyond what is considered the normal run of information-gathering expected in diplomatic circles.

Le Monde said a memo asked U.S. diplomats to collect basic contact information about U.N. officials that included Internet passwords, credit card numbers and frequent flyer numbers. They were also asked to obtain fingerprints, ID photos, DNA and iris scans of people of interest to the United States, Le Monde said.

State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley played down the diplomatic spying allegations. "Our diplomats are just that, diplomats," he said. "They collect information that shapes our policies and actions. This is what diplomats, from our country and other countries, have done for hundreds of years."

The White House noted that "by its very nature, field reporting to Washington is candid and often incomplete information. It is not an expression of policy, nor does it always shape final policy decisions."

"Nevertheless, these cables could compromise private discussions with foreign governments and opposition leaders, and when the substance of private conversations is printed on the front pages of newspapers across the world, it can deeply impact not only U.S. foreign policy interests, but those of our allies and friends around the world," the White House said.

Comments such a description of Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, Russia's head of state, as playing "Robin to (Prime Minister Vladimir) Putin's Batman," are sure to embarrass the Obama administration and to complicate its diplomacy.

The White House said the release of the documents could endanger the lives of people who live under "oppressive regimes" and "deeply impact" the foreign policy interests of the United States, its allies and partners around the world.

"To be clear — such disclosures put at risk our diplomats, intelligence professionals, and people around the world who come to the United States for assistance in promoting democracy and open government," White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said.

"By releasing stolen and classified documents, WikiLeaks has put at risk not only the cause of human rights but also the lives and work of these individuals," he said.

Security analysts tended to agree that the release of the documents was a severe blow to U.S. diplomacy, undermining the confidentiality that is vital for foreign leaders and activists to talk candidly to U.S. officials.

"This is pretty devastating," Roger Cressey, a partner at Goodharbor Consulting and a former U.S. cyber security and counter-terrorism official, said.

The New York Times said "the documents serve an important public interest, illuminating the goals, successes, compromises and frustrations of American diplomacy in a way that other accounts cannot match."

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange claimed the administration was trying to cover up alleged evidence of serious "human rights abuse and other criminal behavior" by the U.S. government. WikiLeaks posted the documents just hours after it claimed its website had been hit by a cyberattack that made the site inaccessible for much of the day.

The Times highlighted documents that indicated the U.S. and South Korea were "gaming out an eventual collapse of North Korea" and discussing the prospects for a unified country if the isolated, communist North's economic troubles and political transition lead it to implode.

The Times also cited diplomatic cables describing unsuccessful U.S. efforts to prod Pakistani officials to remove highly enriched uranium from a reactor out of fear that the material could be used to make an illicit atomic device. And the newspaper cited cables that showed Yemen's president, Ali Abdullah Saleh, telling Gen. David Petraeus that his country would pretend that American missile strikes against a local al-Qaida group had come from Yemen's forces.

The paper also cited documents showing the U.S. used hardline tactics to win approval from countries to accept freed detainees from Guantanamo Bay. It said Slovenia was told to take a prisoner if its president wanted to meet with President Barack Obama and said the Pacific island of Kiribati was offered millions of dollars to take in a group of detainees.

'Forget about democracy in Iraq'

The leaked documents, the majority of which are from 2007 or later, also disclose U.S. allegations that China's Politburo directed an intrusion into Google's computer systems, part of a broader coordinated campaign of computer sabotage carried out by Chinese government operatives, private security experts and Internet outlaws, the Times reported.

According to the documents, leading oil exporter Saudi Arabia offered to promote energy ties with China if Beijing backed sanctions against Iran, the Times said.

The kingdom is the top crude oil supplier for China, the world's second-largest oil consumer.

"(Saudi) Deputy Foreign Minister Dr Prince Torki ... explained that Saudi Arabia understood China was concerned about having access to energy supplies, which could be cut off by Iran, and wanted to attract more trade and investment," a diplomatic dispatch said, the newspaper reported on its website.

"Saudi Arabia was willing to provide assurances on those scores to China, but only in exchange for tangible Chinese actions to restrain Iran's drive for nuclear weapons."

Le Monde focused on an exchange between President Nicolas Sarkozy's top foreign advisor, Jean David Levitte, with American undersecretary Phillip Gordon. Levitte describes Venezuela's Hugo Chavez as "crazy" and says he is "turning one of the richest Latin American countries into another Zimbabwe."

Der Spiegel reported that the cables portrayed German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle in unflattering terms. It said American diplomats saw Merkel as risk-averse and Westerwelle as largely powerless.

The German magazine also said Egyptian President Hosni Mubarek claimed the Iraq war was the "biggest mistake ever committed" and advised the U.S. to "forget about democracy in Iraq." He said the best hope for a peaceful transition once American forces leave is for there to be a military coup.

Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi, meanwhile, was described as erratic and in the near constant company of a Ukrainian nurse who was described in one cable as "a voluptuous blonde," according to the Times.

WikiLeaks' action was widely condemned.

Italy's Foreign Minister Franco Frattini on Sunday called the release the "Sept. 11 of world diplomacy," in that everything that had once been accepted as normal has now changed.

Pakistan's foreign ministry said it was an "irresponsible disclosure of sensitive official documents" while Iraq's foreign minister, Hoshyar Zebari, called the document release "unhelpful and untimely."

John Kornblum, a former U.S. ambassador to Germany, told German broadcaster ZDF that the disclosures could have a "severe" impact.

"If you now speak with an American diplomat, you have to be worried that it will appear in the newspaper the next day," he added.

The French government issued a statement saying it was "very much in solidarity with the American administration."

In Australia, Assange's home country, Attorney General Robert McClelland said law enforcement officials were investigating whether WikiLeaks broke any laws.

The State Department's top lawyer warned Assange late Saturday that lives and military operations would be put at risk if the cables were released. Legal adviser Harold Koh said WikiLeaks would be breaking the law if it went ahead. He also rejected a request from Assange to cooperate in removing sensitive details from the documents.


Sources: CNN, MSNBC, Youtube

Aung San Suu Kyi: Myanmar's Human Rights Champion

Suu Kyi's Freedom: A Catalyst For Change Or Not?


Nyi Nyi Aung learned the news just before sunrise Saturday: The woman who has inspired him in his two-decade-long struggle was free.

Myanmar's military rulers released democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi from house arrest Saturday, and across the globe, hope stirred again in the hearts of those who have been advocating for change in the authoritarian nation.

"She is the only one who has the patience, the ideas on how to solve the problem in Burma," Nyi Nyi said, refusing to use the name for his country favored by the junta.

But amid the joy, Nyi Nyi, a resident of the Washington area, voiced the same cautious optimism that rang from all corners.

Was Suu Kyi's release conditional? What will she be able to accomplish under the thumb of a hardline dictatorship that has stamped out voices of opposition and just held an election that has been widely criticized as a sham?

This was the third time the regime has released Suu Kyi from house arrest. Benjamin Zawacki, Myanmar expert for Amnesty International, noted that her last release had been unconditional and then she was thrown again into house arrest.

He said conditions could be rolled out as events on the ground unfold, and the government could interpret a given event or act as a justification to make an arrest.

Zawacki also labeled the move as a political calculation.

The regime is trying to reinvent itself as democratic, he said, first with the elections last Sunday and now with Suu Kyi's release.

There is concern, he said, that other countries will take the regime's bait and lessen their resolve to continue to take tough actions in the sanctions and human rights arenas.

Among those concerned is Nyi Nyi, who appealed on behalf of the Burmese people for nations like the United States to maintain pressure on Myanmar's regime to implement change.

"We are planning to stand by [Suu Kyi]," he said. "But we need everyone to keep up the pressure."

Michael Green, a Center for Strategic and International Studies expert on Asia and a senior Asia adviser to former President George W. Bush, said the move was calculated precisely to forestall international isolation punishment, including a possible U.N. commission that would probe human rights abuses.

It was not at all a sign, he said, that the regime is trying to patch things up with its internal rivals.

"I think the starting premise for this is the incredible loathing and fear that this regime has for Aung San Suu Kyi," Green said. "It knows almost no bounds. You can discount that this is a gesture at international reconciliation."

The audience for the move, he said, was external, a conscious effort to "drive a wedge" between countries that are inclined to support Myanmar, such as India and China, and countries such as the United States, Japan, Australia and European nations, which want tough action.

The hardline military junta took power in Myanmar, formerly known as Burma, in 1962. It's difficult to predict what will transpire in the days and weeks ahead, but most agree that Suu Kyi's release is not likely to spur change right away.

"This is, at best, a single step forward on the proverbial thousand-mile journey," said Jared Genser, one of Suu Kyi's lawyers who is based in the United States.

"We should recall she's been out on numerous occasions before over the last 21 years, and nothing has changed in the country. And indeed, in the last several years, the military regime in Burma has not taken even a single step to try to demonstrate its willingness to compromise," he said.

Still, Nyo Ohn Myint, a committee leader in Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy party, said there is no doubt that Saturday's release is a key moment in modern Myanmar history.

The regime is at a political crossroads, he said. It could be that Myanmar's generals are feeling overly confident after the election, an issue Myint said is a priority on Suu Kyi's agenda. Her release again puts momentum on the side of the opposition.

"She has tremendous political power," Myint said about his friend of two decades. "This is not the end of the story, only the beginning of the struggle."

Meanwhile, human rights activists as well as global leaders -- including President Obama -- reminded the world that there is a long struggle ahead to secure basic freedoms for the people of Myanmar.

Despite Suu Kyi's release, more than 2,200 other political prisoners were still sitting behind bars in Myanmar jails.

Navi Pillay, the U.N. human rights commissioner, called Suu Kyi's release a "positive signal" that the Myanmar authorities are willing to move forward with the serious challenge of democratic transition.

"Clearly, Aung San Suu Kyi can make a major contribution to this process," Pillay said, adding her disappointment that Suu Kyi was not allowed to participate in the elections.

She urged the authorities to release the other political prisoners as "a clear sign that the new government intends to respect human rights and forge a new future for the country."

For Nyi Nyi, the matter is highly personal.

He himself spent time in jail in Myanmar for his activism, and his mother, Sann Sann Tin, has been imprisoned since she was arrested in protests in 2007. Not a day goes by that he doesn't think of his 63-year-old mother's plight.

That's why the joy of seeing the images of Suu Kyi again addressing her supporters was marred.

"That's why we don't think of it as freedom for Burma," he said.


View Larger Map


Sources: CNN, Google Maps

Pres. Obama's Afghan War Strategy Speech (Video)...30,000 More Deployed

Obama: U.S. security at stake in Afghanistan. President Barack Obama explains his decision to send 30,000 additional U.S. troops Afghanistan. Watch his entire speech here.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

View Larger Map


Sources: MSNBC, Politico, Google Maps

Obama's Afghan War Strategy Quagmire...Selling New Troop Surge Idea To Dems

Is Pres. Obama's Afghan decision already a done deal?

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Pres. Obama plots future of the Afghan Mission.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Pres. Barack Obama must sell base on unpopular war in Afghanistan



In his speech to the nation next Tuesday, President Barack Obama must persuade supporters who thought they’d voted for an anti-war president to back a plan expected to roughly double the number of troops in Afghanistan from when he took office.

Obama’s rise as a national political figure was fueled by his early opposition to the war in Iraq, which distinguished him from primary foes who’d initially backed the invasion and which quickly won him the support of millions who had grown weary of that conflict. While he repeatedly talked on the campaign trail about directing more resources to the fight in Afghanistan, many of his supporters took that rhetoric primarily as a critique of President George W. Bush’s military priorities.

“It was an excellent campaign line for Obama to say, ‘We took our eye off Afghanistan and fought the wrong war in Iraq,’” said Marvin Weinbaum, a former State Department South Asia specialist now affiliated with the Middle East Institute. “The implications of what he was saying I don’t think registered on people…..They didn’t see it.”

“I don’t think there was a consciousness in the electorate that, if we elect Obama, we’re sending 50,000 troops to Afghanistan,” said Kurt Volker of Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. “It wasn’t hidden, but it wasn’t evident to voters who were focused on other issues."

In major foreign policy speeches in August 2007 and July 2008, Obama did talk of sending “at least two” more U.S. combat brigades — made up of between three thousand and four thousand troops each — to Afghanistan. However, the 21,000 troops he has already sent far exceed any troop increase he discussed publicly before the election, even before the 30,000 or so more he’s expected to announce he’ll add to that number in Tuesday’s speech.

Volker said part of the reason Obama’s campaign talk of shifting focus and troops to Afghanistan didn’t sink in with voters was because such a mission didn’t seem terribly dangerous to the public when the upstart candidate, and many of his Democratic colleagues staked out that position during the early stages of last year’s campaign when Iraq was the war that occupied the lion’s share of media coverage and the public’s attention.

“The situation in Afghanistan now appears to be definitely worse than it was then,” said Volker, a former U.S. ambassador to NATO who supports a troop increase. “What seemed to be a steady course, responsible and not that hard last year, now seems to be a big gulp.”

As Obama prepares to unveil his Afghan strategy to a military audience at West Point on Tuesday, it’s his most loyal political supporters who need the most convincing.

A USA Today/Gallup Poll released Wednesday showed slightly more Americans supporting an escalation of the war than supporting a decrease in troop levels. But the survey also shows support for sending more troops comes largely from Obama’s political opponents, while those who voted for him and who will be critical to reelecting Democrats in Congress next year are deeply skeptical.

The new poll found 57 percent of Democrats favor beginning a withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan, while just half as many, 29 percent, favored a hike in troop levels. Republicans were far more likely to back Obama’s expected call for 30,000 or so additional troops, with 72 percent backing some increase, while just 17 percent want to start pulling out.

The White House has concluded that making a troop increase more palatable to Democrats means framing it in terms liberals are more comfortable with, as just one part of a much bigger strategy involving diplomatic, multi-national and civilian aid efforts. At the same time, he has to reassure Democrats who worry that the war, now entering its ninth year, will or has become a quagmire.

“This is a complex decision. It does not just depend on what number we put in there,” White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said Wednesday on MSNBC’s “Hardball.” "One of the things the president has spent probably the most amount of time on [is] not just trying to figure out how many we get in but how we get our troops out.”

Gibbs added, “The president will ... underscore for the American people that this is not an open-ended conflict, that we will not be here forever, that we have to pass this on to the Afghans.”

Many analysts say that if Obama can’t get most Democrats on board with a troop increase, the consequences could be politically serious both for the Democratic Party’s 2010 electoral prospects and the president’s broader agenda.

“I think it threatens his domestic agenda pretty substantially, unless he takes the people along with him,” said Bruce Buchanan, a professor of government at the University of Texas. “That’s what a lot of other Democrats like [House Speaker Nancy] Pelosi are worried about right now. ... He risks alienating large chunks of the Democratic Party.”

The danger is particularly acute for Democratic members of Congress who need a robust turnout from their core constituencies next November to stave off the losses the party in the White House usually suffers in such elections.

“War is an emotional issue,” Buchanan said. “In the midterms especially, some of those people who are conflicted may sit on their hands ... All those things make it a sticky wicket for Obama.”

Some lawmakers such as Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.) and Rep. Dave Obey (D-Wis.) are trying to sell wary Democrats on a troop increase by coupling it with a promise to hike taxes to pay for the additional cost, which could be on the order of $30 billion a year.

In the past, Obama has promised that all supplemental war funding would be offset with budget cuts or revenue hikes. However, the White House seems to be giving a chilly reception to the idea of a broad-based tax hike to pay for additional troops.

“I have been in no meetings where there’s been a war tax discussed,” Gibbs told CNN Wednesday.

While many pundits see the Afghan situation as a likely loser politically for Obama, at least in the short term, a few see more promise than peril in the president being forced to rely on Republicans for support.

“I don’t see why that isn’t a complete win-win domestic political equation for him,” said Tom Donnelly, a defense analyst at the American Enterprise Institute. “Obama’s got an immense upside in this, if you ask me. With all the questions about whether he’s forceful or decisive enough, he’s got a real opportunity to get his mojo back. There’s nothing like victory to make a politician popular.”

Donnelly said he thinks rumblings from Democrats about blocking any escalation are essentially empty threats. “Are you trying to tell me that a Democratic Congress that couldn’t cut off funding on George Bush’s awful Iraq war is actually going to pull the plug on [Obama]?” Donnelly asked.

If the Obama surge focuses at first on limited areas in Afghanistan, such as the Kandahar region, nervous congressmen could actually be able to point to some progress on the ground before they face voters next November. “By the middle of next year, we ought to be able to see something for our effort,” Weinbaum said.

However, one analyst of public sentiment in wartime warned any progress is likely to be accompanied by an increase in American casualties.

“If [Obama’s] going to be more aggressive militarily, it means more Americans are going to die and that’s the thing that moves public opinion more than anything else,” said John Mueller, a professor of political science at Ohio State University.

Mueller noted that once Americans give up on a war, it’s difficult to get them back on board even when there’s compelling evidence of a turnaround on the ground.

“Once people are turned off on a war they tend to stay turned off,” Mueller said. “That’s what happened in Iraq. Even when it became clear that the war was decidedly going better, the numbers of people who supported it didn’t move much.”



View Larger Map


Sources: Politico, MSNBC, Google Maps

Pres. Obama's Asia Trip Reaps Zero Results...No Jobs, No Agreements, etc.,

President Obama's trip: Style over Substance


President Barack Obama returns from his maiden Asian swing with none of the concrete accomplishments that White Houses typically put in place before big trips, setting up a stark test for his idealistic theory that the United States should act more like a wise neighbor than a swaggering superpower.

Obama’s minimalist approach was most consequential in China, where he did not meet with Christians, dissidents or bloggers, or directly challenge his hosts for repressive tactics that are again on the rise.

The Chinese in turn rebuffed longstanding U.S. concerns – whether on human rights, Iran or currency policy – in a heavily stage-managed visit where China, not Obama, clearly sought the upper hand.

It’s an approach that carries great risk for Obama – playing straight into his critics’ accusations that his new, more multilateral style isn’t paying dividends, and worse, is making him look weak and ineffectual abroad.

“They don’t want this narrative that the U.S. is a declining power and China is a rising power, and the trip just reinforced that,” said Adam Segal, a senior fellow on China at the Council on Foreign Relations. “The sense of the trip was, ‘We’re not here to get in their face about these things.’”

Add to that the fact the main image of Obama abroad that really broke through to the American public out of the trip – Obama bowing to the Japanese emperor – didn’t exactly reinforce the image of a muscular leader abroad.

But there were substantive problems as well. An early test drive of Obama’s policy of engaging rivals and adversaries around the globe suffered a setback Wednesday, when Iran defied Washington and rejected a United Nations call for the regime to send enriched uranium abroad for processing, which would inhibit the building of nuclear weapons.

That plan was sort of Obama’s ace-in-the-hole for dealing with Iran – and success would have been vindication for his approach to talk to the Iranian regime “without preconditions,” as he said during the campaign. Now Obama is roughly back where President George W. Bush often found himself, trying to rally world support to crack down on an intransigent Iran.

Ironically, the disappointment did give Obama a chance to show he has a spine. At his final diplomatic event of the trip, a two-question news conference with South Korean President Lee Myung-bak, Obama sounded like a stern parent when he said: “We have begun discussions with our international partners about the importance of having consequences.”

Through it all, the White House says it’s not concerned.

After the press conference, U.S. reporters surrounded White House senior adviser David Axelrod, who said the goal of the trip “was to lay a foundation for economic progress, to open up markets for American goods, to lay a foundation for progress on mutual security issues…to lay groundwork on climate change.”

“Though the President is demonstrably popular in all these countries and polling reflects that, we didn't come halfway across the world for ticker-tape parades,” Axelrod said. “So we believe it was a successful trip.”

In “key points” on the trip provided to reporters, a senior administration official contended: “American leadership was absent from this region for the last several years, despite the fact that it is increasingly central to our economic growth and our security. President Obama put our alliances on a firmer footing, reasserted our leadership in the region, and continued to advance a complicated bilateral relationship with China that will play a large role in shaping the 21st century.”

Axelrod said the White House recognized “didn't have expectations that Barack Obama arrives in China or anywhere else and things change overnight.”

“This is not an immediate gratification business,” Axelrod said. “I understand that Washington is in the immediate gratification business. … [T]he ultimate measure is where these issues -- how these issues resolve in the weeks and months and years to come. And we have a greater chance for success because of this trip and others he's made.”

But the formulation puts the White House in the awkward position of promising results down the road. It wasn’t just the lack of hard results, but the tone of Obama’s remarks, even passing up opportunity to speak out more vocally against the repressive Chinese regime.

At a “town meeting” with students in Shanghai, for instance, Obama avoided directly challenging the Chinese for blocking Twitter from the Web. Instead, Obama declared: “I'm a big supporter of non-censorship.”

Segal said that while the trip succeeding on the White House’s terms of sending a message of cooperation, Obama might have given a plain-spoken answer to the Twitter question, along the lines of: “I think the Chinese government is hurting itself.”

Still, several national-security veterans agreed that the White House press corps had unrealistic expectations for the trip. Douglas H. Paal, a vice president at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said the reporters traveling with Obama seemed to think he should “punch [Chinese President] Hu Jintao in the nose.”

Paal, who was on the National Security Council staffs of Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, said Obama succeeded by reassuring other Asian nations – including during his other three stops in Singapore, South Korea and Japan – that the U.S. will serve as a counterbalance to China.

That was the administration’s “We’re back” message. And many foreign policy experts are giving Obama high marks for patience. Patrick Cronin, senior director of the Asia-Pacific Security Program at the Center for a New American Security, has been able to establish a “new rapport with China – a relationship of almost parity.”

Cronin said Obama “asked for something from each country, but also showed the United States will make compromises and recognize our own limitations and mistakes.”

“He’s not pointing a finger,” Cronin said. “Conservative critics will say he gave too much away. But Asia is about relationship-building. This first trip was a good investment. He’s playing a strategic game, not just a tactical one. It creates problems if others misperceive this as weakness.”

Minxin Pei, a well-known specialist on U.S.-China relations who joined Claremont McKenna College last summer, said Obama missed an opportunity by not insisting that the town hall in Shanghai be nationally televised, and calling the Chinese government’s bluff by threatening to cancel the event.

“Unlike previous American presidents, Obama went to Asia with a lot of baggage: Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, and domestic difficulties,” Pei said. “As a result, he had much less leverage. The Asians want business, but Uncle Sam is not in the mood for more free trade -- the politics in Washington does not allow that. And with sky-high deficits, Obama cannot promise anything else. So he carries neither a stick nor a carrot. It is not a good position to be.”

Pei sees a possible silver lining for the White House. “Because the press coverage of his trip is quite bad, it may have caused some heartburn in Beijing,” Pei said. “Chinese leaders know that a good relationship with Obama will be in China's interest. And a weakened Obama cannot manage U.S.-China ties effectively. So there is a chance that China will do something after the trip is over to show that Obama's visit is not fruitless after all.”


Sources: Politico

China's Human Rights & Racial Issues...Pres. Obama Toes The Line During 1st Visit

Pres. Obama's Asia Trip: "Nations need not fear the success of another".

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

In first visit to China, Pres. Obama walks a tightrope

President Barack Obama is walking a tightrope on his first trip to China, seeking to enlist help in tackling urgent global problems while weighing when and how — or if — he should raise traditional human rights concerns.

Obama arrived in Shanghai late at night, in a driving rain, hustling through a phalanx of umbrella-holding dignitaries to reach his limousine. On Monday, the president is holding talks with local politicians and, in one of the marquee events of his weeklong Asian trip, conducting an American-style town hall discussion with Chinese university students.

Thirty years after the start of diplomatic relations between the two countries, the ties are growing — but remain mixed on virtually every front.

The two nations are partnering more than ever on battling global warming, but they still differ deeply over hard targets for reductions in the greenhouse-gas emissions that cause it. China has supported sterner sanctions to halt North Korea's nuclear weapons program, but it still balks at getting more aggressive about reining in Iran's uranium enrichment.

Giant Trade Deficit with U.S.

China is a huge and lucrative market for American goods and services, and yet it has a giant trade deficit with the U.S. that, like a raft of other economic issues, is a bone of contention between the two governments. The two militaries have increased their contacts, but clashes still happen and the U.S. remains worried about a dramatic buildup in what is already the largest standing army in the world.

Amid all that, Obama has adopted a pragmatic approach that stresses the positive, sometimes earning him criticism for being too soft on Beijing, particularly in the area of human rights abuses and what the U.S. regards as an undervalued Chinese currency that disadvantages U.S. products.

Obama recognizes that a rising China, as the world's third-largest economy on the way to becoming the second and the largest foreign holder of U.S. debt, has shifted the dynamic more toward one of equals. For instance, Chinese questions about how Washington spending policies will affect the already soaring U.S. deficit and the safety of Chinese investments now must be answered by Washington.

Second, Obama wants not to anger Beijing, but to encourage it to pair its growing economic and political clout with greater leadership in solving some of the most urgent global problems, including a sagging economy, warming planet and the spread of dangerous weapons.

Obama has talked warmly toward China, particularly in the days leading up to his visit.

"The United States does not seek to contain China," Obama said in a speech from Tokyo on Saturday. "On the contrary, the rise of a strong, prosperous China can be a source of strength for the community of nations."

Human Rights Concerns

One test of the line Obama is walking on China will be human rights, including religious freedom in the officially atheist nation. Aides said in advance that Obama would raise several human rights issues privately with Chinese leaders, including President Hu Jintao.

But it was unlikely he would repeat those messages too stridently in public, out of concern for angering his hosts. Even before arriving in China, for example, he declined to get specific about human rights concerns with China in his Tokyo speech and eschewed the traditional presidential meeting with the Dalai Lama while he was in Washington in June.

Obama said he would see the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader later, a decision welcomed by Chinese officials who pressure foreign governments not to meet with the Dalai Lama and spurn Tibetans' desires for autonomy from Chinese rule.

The White House hoped Monday's town hall meeting with Chinese university students would allow Obama to telegraph U.S. values — through its successes and failures — to the widest Chinese audience possible.

But those hopes will have their limits in communist-ruled, tightly controlled China. The particulars of the town hall, including whether it could even be called one, were the subject of delicate negotiations between the White House and the Chinese up to the last minute. It remained unclear, for instance, whether — and how broadly — it would be broadcast on television and how much of a hand the central government had in choosing those allowed to question the U.S. President.

Will visit noted Landmarks

Obama deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes said Obama would call at random on several of those in the audience, to be made up of hundreds of students hand-picked by the department heads of Shanghai-area universities, and would also answer questions solicited in advance by the White House from "various sources on the Internet."

Even if the event is only aired on China's main English-language TV channel, which has very few viewers, the White House will stream the conversation live on http://www.whitehouse.gov, an unblocked site in China.

From Shanghai, Obama was to be off to the capital of Beijing for the pomp and substance of a two-day state visit hosted for Obama by Hu.

Obama's China visit features the only sightseeing of his high-intensity Asian journey. He will visit the Forbidden City, home of former emperors in Beijing, and the centuries-old Great Wall outside of the city. Visiting a country's noted landmarks is considered a sign of respect in the world of diplomacy. But Obama aides also have learned that finding some tourist time serves to both calm and energize their boss amid the always grueling schedule of a foreign trip.







Racial rethinking as Pres. Obama visits


As a mixed-race girl growing up in this most cosmopolitan of mainland Chinese cities, 20-year-old Lou Jing said she never experienced much discrimination -- curiosity and questions, but never hostility.

So nothing prepared Lou, whose father is a black American, for the furor that erupted in late August when she beat out thousands of other young women on "Go! Oriental Angel," a televised talent show. Angry Internet posters called her a "black chimpanzee" and worse. One called for all blacks in China to be deported.

As the country gets ready to welcome the first African American U.S. president, whose first official visit here starts Sunday, the Chinese are confronting their attitudes toward race, including some deeply held prejudices about black people. Many appeared stunned that Americans had elected a black man, and President Obama's visit has underscored Chinese ambivalence about the growing numbers of blacks living here.

"It's sad," Lou said, her eyes welling up as she recalled her experience. "If I had a face that was half-Chinese and half-white, I wouldn't have gotten that criticism. . . . Before the contest, I didn't realize these kinds of attitudes existed."

As China has expanded its economic ties with Africa -- trade between them reached $107 billion last year -- the number of Africans living here has exploded. Tens of thousands have flocked to the south, where they are putting down roots, establishing communities, marrying Chinese women and having children.

In the process, they are making tiny pockets of urban China more racially diverse -- and forcing the Chinese to deal with issues of racial discrimination. In the southern city of Guangzhou, where residents refer to one downtown neighborhood as Chocolate City, local newspapers have been filled in recent months with stories detailing discrimination and alleging police harassment against the African community.

"In Guangzhou, to be frank, they don't like Africans very much," said Diallo Abdual, 26, who came to China from Guinea 1 1/2 years ago to buy cheap Chinese clothes to ship back to West Africa for sale.

With the recession, his business has dried up, his money is gone, and he has overstayed his visa. Now, like many Africans here, he spends most of his days at Guangzhou's Tangqi shopping mall avoiding the police.

"The security will beat you with irons like you are a goat," he said. "The way they treat the blacks is very, very bad." He and others pointed out the spot where in July several Africans jumped from an upper-floor window to escape an immigration raid. One migrant was reported critically injured in the fall, and a large number of Africans marched on the local police station in protest.

The Guangzhou Security Bureau said in a statement at the time that it had a duty to check that foreigners living in the city were there legally.

Long-held Prejudice

In the 1960s, China began befriending African countries, supporting liberation movements in Africa and bringing African students to China in a show of Third World solidarity. Lately, China has further deepened its ties to the continent, with Premier Wen Jiabao pledging $10 billion in new low-cost loans at a China-Africa summit in Egypt last week.

But that official policy of friendship has always been balanced against another reality -- the widely held view here that black people are inferior, that white people are wealthy and successful.

"The kind of prejudice you see now really happened with the economic growth," said Hung Huang, a Beijing-based fashion magazine publisher and host of "Straight Talk," a nightly current affairs talk show. "The Chinese worshiped the West, and for Chinese people, 'the West' is white people."

Hung, 48, said her generation was "taught world history in a way that black people were oppressed, they were slaves, and we haven't seen any sign of success since. The African countries are still poor, and blacks [in America] still live in inner cities." Hung noted that Chinese racial prejudices extend to the country's own minority groups, including Tibetans and Uighurs -- or anyone who is not ethnically Han Chinese.

The view of African Americans as poor and oppressed fits into the official narrative of the United States as a place of glaring inequalities. China's most recent annual report on the United States' human rights record in 2008, released in February, made no mention of Obama's historic election. But it said, "In the United States, racial discrimination prevails in every aspect of social life."

"Black people and other minorities live at the bottom of the American society," the report said. "There is serious racial hostility in the United States."

Sherwood Hu, a Shanghai-based filmmaker, was one of the judges on "Go! Oriental Angel" who gave Lou high marks. "Before the Cultural Revolution, China considered black people our brothers and white people our enemies," Hu said. "But deep down, they're a little bit afraid of black people."

The racial animosity here reflects a prejudice dating to China's mainly agrarian past: Darker skin meant you worked the fields; lighter skin put you among the elite. The country is rapidly industrializing and urbanizing, but that historical prejudice remains. High-end skin-whitening products are a $100 million-a-year business in China, according to industry statistics.

"Are we Racist?"

Chen Juan, 27, a secretary in an English-language training school in Beijing, regularly uses skin-whitening products and carries an umbrella on summer days. "For me, the whiter, the better. Being white means pretty," she said. "If someone looks too black, I feel they look countrified and like a farmer. . . . Being white is prettier than being black."

"In my impression, black people, especially Africans, are not clean enough," Chen continued. "To be frank, I just feel black people are too black. Definitely, I wouldn't consider having a black guy as my boyfriend even if he were rich."

P.C. Chike, a Nigerian businessman in Guangzhou who has been in China for five years, exports wigs and extensions made from Chinese hair to his home country. He married a Chinese woman from Beijing, and they have a son, with another on the way.

"Chinese don't like Africans. They don't like black skin," Chike said. "China trying to embrace Africa is a political statement. The question is, how do they treat black people?"

Li Wenjuan, Chike's wife, said she thinks racial attitudes are less coarse in Beijing than in Guangzhou, where the commonly used Cantonese term for blacks translates as "black ghosts."

Some here say Obama's presidency is causing a major shift in attitudes. Others, however, say many Chinese rationalize his election as a fluke of the American system or suggest that Obama, whose mother was white, isn't "really" black.

"It will be really interesting to see what happens when he comes to visit, because I really think the Chinese have a hard time with it," Hung said. "Nobody has dealt with this question of what this means to our sense of race. It's a kind of self-examination that Chinese -- including myself -- need to go through: Are we racist?"

Lou sees similarities between her life and Obama's: She also grew up without her father, whom she never knew. She read Obama's autobiography and watched his campaign speeches on television. She learned how to chant "Yes, we can!" in English and calls Obama "my idol."

Reading the withering online criticisms of her talent-show appearance, she recalled, she came across one post that asked: "Now that Obama is president, does that mean a new day for black people has arrived?"

"I think the answer is yes," she said. "Some Chinese people's perceptions of black people here have been transformed."



View Larger Map


Sources: MSNBC, Washington Post, Huffington Post, Google Maps

Pacific Rim Free-Trade Pact (APEC Summit)..."An Era Of Cooperation"

"Nations need not fear the success of another". President Obama stresses a desire to strengthen alliances with countries in the Pacific Rim.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Chinese on Obama. How do the Chinese feel about President Obama? NBC's Adrienne Mong reports.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

On Pacific trip, Pres. Obama warns North Korea

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Pres. Obama hints at Pacific Rim Free-Trade Pact


President Barack Obama raised hopes for creating an Asia-Pacific free-trade region by announcing Saturday that the U.S. would seek to join a smaller group seen as a precursor to a broader Pacific Rim agreement.

News that the U.S. would participate in the Trans-Pacific Partnership — joining Chile, New Zealand, Singapore and Brunei — was announced in Tokyo and Singapore, drawing applause at the annual Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum.

"Significant steps like the TPP are important to help keep up the momentum in our efforts to realize the ... vision" to create a region-wide free trade area, Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong told other leaders at their weekend summit here.

There have been concerns that the U.S., the world's biggest economy, and other nations might turn inward as they grapple with the worst global financial crisis in decades.

Obama's move reinforced calls for expanding free trade rather than resorting to protectionist measures to cope with the recession. He pushed for progress on talks to liberalize world trade.

"In this new era, opening other markets around the globe will be critical not just to America's prosperity, but to the world's," Obama said in Tokyo before departing for the APEC forum.

APEC, celebrating its 20th anniversary this year, was created to promote greater trade and integration among Pacific Rim nations from Chile to China. Its scope since has expanded to encompass a wide range of issues, including climate change, energy and food security, and politics.

The anniversary comes amid the biggest global financial crisis since the 1930s. While the worst appears over, the recovery remains fragile, leaders said.

Signs of Protectionism

Trade has significantly contributed to growth in the Asia-Pacific region, but there are creeping signs of protectionism with the economic downturn, South Korean President Lee Myung-bak told his APEC partners.

"It is important that we leaders bear the firm belief that free trade is the way to contribute to national development, and we should prevent protectionism and spread free trade," he said.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev called trade a powerful economic stimulus. "We have to do everything in our power to refrain from protectionism," he said.

Leaders said nations must time the withdrawal of stimulus packages carefully, and put better regulatory measures in place to avoid the financial collapse of the past year. They will also push for faster action on trade liberation talks and seek global agreement on climate change, according to a draft statement obtained Saturday by The Associated Press.

U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk urged APEC members to work together to stimulate recovery in a "balanced" way, a comment that hints at concerns over China's export-reliant growth.

"A rising tide lifts all boats," he said. "If we work together to rise above this downturn, we can lift up all our economies and all our peoples."

Washington sees free-trade areas as a way to create jobs in the U.S., said Kirk, standing in for Obama, who arrived in Singapore later Saturday.

Singapore welcomed the U.S. announcement and said the TPP, which went into force in 2006, now has the potential to expand to an eight-member group, with Australia, Peru and Vietnam also expressing interest.

Simon Tay of the Singapore Institute for International Affairs also praised the move.

"Americans have to get beyond this idea that free trade with Asia destroys their jobs. Both sides can benefit," he said.

The longer-term goal is to expand the TPP to an agreement encompassing all 21 APEC members, dubbed the Free Trade Area of the Asia-Pacific, but Tay called it "early days" for progress on the broader pact.

Congressional Reluctance

Despite the commitment to free trade, the U.S. Congress has balked at passing agreements with South Korea, Colombia and Panama negotiated under the previous presidency.

"There are some substantive issues that must be resolved with each of the trade agreements before they can be teed up," U.S. Commerce Secretary Gary Locke told the AP.

Obama, who visits Seoul in the coming days, has expressed concern that under the proposed pact, U.S. manufacturers won't have enough access to South Korea's auto market.

A call for concrete goals on greenhouse gas emissions, meanwhile, appeared watered down in the leaders' draft statement. A previous draft pledged a 50 percent reduction from 1990 levels by 2050; the latest draft committed to working toward "a good agreement" at climate talks in Copenhagen, Denmark, next month to "limit" emissions.

APEC leaders also stressed the need to invest in social safety nets such as education, health care and employment training to ensure stability in the long term.

Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama brought up the sensitive issue of suicides in his country, which has the second-highest rate of suicide in the 30-nation Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. He called for nurturing economies that value its workers as human beings.

"When you have as many as 30,000 people who kill themselves (a year), that is abnormal," he said Friday. "We should not turn into a country where people take their own lives if they can't find a place in society."

Later Saturday, leaders carried out an APEC tradition by donning the cultural attire of the host nation for dinner. The hand-embroidered linen tunics reflect Singapore's mix of Chinese, Malay and Indian cultures, designer Wykidd Song said.



View Larger Map


Sources: MSNBC, Google Maps

Pres. Obama Calls For Greater U.S. - Asia Engagement

Chinese on Obama. How do the Chinese feel about President Obama? NBC's Adrienne Mong reports.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

"Nations need not fear the success of another". President Obama spoke in Tokyo and stressed a desire to strengthen alliances with countries in Pacific Asia, and that the U.S. does not seek to limit China's growth.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Pres. Obama hails expanded U.S.-Asia ties


President Barack Obama declared Saturday that an era of American disengagement in the globe's fastest-growing region is over and warned that the U.S. and its Asian partners "will not be cowed" by North Korea's continued defiance over its nuclear weapons and other provocations.

"It should be clear where that path leads," Obama said. "We will continue to send a clear message through our actions, and not just our words: North Korea's refusal to meet its international obligations will lead only to less security, not more."

Calling for greater U.S. engagement in Asia, Obama said Americans should not fear a robust China, but he cautioned that all nations must respect human rights, including religious freedoms.

"We welcome China's efforts to play a greater role on the world stage, a role in which their growing economy is joined by growing responsibility," Obama said.

Obama offered an incentive for North Korea to abandon the nuclear weapons it is believed to already have and the production program it continues in defiance of U.N. Security Council resolutions. He outlined a possible future of economic opportunity and greater global greater security and respect. "This respect cannot be earned through belligerence," he said.

More broadly, the President's speech before 1,500 prominent Japanese in a soaring downtown Tokyo concert hall was intended to showcase a United States that, under Obama's leadership, seeks deeper and more equal engagement in Asia. It was the fifth major foreign address of Obama's 10-month presidency, this one geared toward setting a new tone for the sometimes-rocky U.S. relationship with the region.

America's first Pacific President

Acknowledging Asia's growing power and perception of America's parallel decline here, Obama aides and the president himself had said the chief aim for his eight-day trip through Asia wasn't so much to bring home specific "deliverables" but to convincingly press the point that the U.S. very much is in the Asian game.

Obama called himself "America's first Pacific president."

In his scene-setting speech of those travels, Obama promised that Washington would work hard to strengthen already established alliances in Asia, such as with Japan and South Korea, build on newer ones with nations like China and Indonesia and increase its participation with a burgeoning alphabet soup of Asian multilateral organizations. The involvement, the president said, is not just academic — but crucial to the issues "that matter most to our people," such as jobs, a cleaner environment and preventing dangerous weapons proliferation.

"I want every American to know that we have a stake in the future of this region, because what happens here has a direct effect on our lives at home," he said. "The fortunes of America and the Asia Pacific have become more closely linked than ever before."

Obama also sounded free-trade notes sure to be welcome in Asia, where nations are rapidly seeking agreements with each other even as the U.S. hangs back on new free-trade pacts.

No need to contain China

On China, Obama suggested there was no need to fear Beijing's rapid rise. He called for harnessing China's clout to progress on shared interests like weapons proliferation, a better global economy and a cleaner world.

"In an interconnected world, power does not need to be a zero-sum game, and nations need not fear the success of another," he said. "So the United States does not seek to contain China."

He also said the United States "will never waver in speaking up for the fundamental values that we hold dear." And yet, clearly hoping to avoid overly irritating Beijing, he named none of the many and serious specific human rights concerns with respect to China, including Tibet, where authorities have suppressed religious freedom and national aspirations.

"Indigenous cultures and economic growth have not been stymied by respect for human rights, they have been strengthened by it," the president said. "Supporting human rights provides lasting security that cannot be purchased in any other way."

Four-country Trip

Obama's remarks came near the start of a trip presenting him with risks at every stop.

In Japan, the relationship with the U.S. is on newly delicate footing after a change in leadership in Tokyo that has the Japanese moving toward greater independence from Washington and closer ties with the rest of Asia. Saturday night, Obama arrives in Singapore, where he is to join a larger meeting that includes the leader of a brutal regime in Myanmar, also known as Burma. He is the first U.S. president to make such close contact.

Then he flies to China, where relations with the U.S. are bedeviled by Beijing's growing economic, political and military might, as well as numerous issues including trade, currency, Taiwan, human rights and climate change. Obama ends his trip on an easier note in South Korea, an increasingly reliable U.S. ally.

Obama made Tokyo the venue for his speech, a symbolically important choice that displayed respect for Japan's long history as the U.S.' chief ally in Asia and one of the region's foremost democracies.

In an effort to move relations between the world's two largest economies toward more settled footing, Obama laid on the compliments. He noted that the leader of the Japan was the first to come to the Oval Office after he assumed the Presidency and that Japan also was Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton's first stop on her first overseas trip

"Our efforts in the Asia Pacific will be rooted, in no small measure, through an enduring and revitalized alliance between the United States and Japan," Obama said.



View Larger Map

Sources: MSNBC, Google Maps